Evaluation of Entrepreneurship Attributes in Dental Students at Babol Medical University

Introduction: Having entrepreneurial and innovative performance is an important issue for individual’s adaption to the new era. Nowadays, entrepreneurship is a necessity, and adequacy of students’ entrepreneurial attributes is a prerequisite for entrepreneurship development in health care. This research was conducted with the aim of evaluating entrepreneurship attributes in dentistry students at Babol Medical University. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was performed on all 82 postgraduate dentistry students at Babol Medical University in 2012-2013. Research tool was three comprehensive standard entrepreneurship questionnaires (with five themes: tendency to be successful, tendency to be independent, creativity, risk-taking, determination), ambiguity tolerance and locus of control. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, and T-test were used. Results: Result indicates that the mean scores of tendency to be successful, tendency to be independent, creativity, risk-taking, and determination and also students’ ambiguity tolerance were 9.5±2.87, 4.38±1.35, 9.13±2.25, 9.22±2.13, 8.24±1.95, 25.47±1.25, 41.64±3.82, respectively, and they were higher than the theoretical mean. Concerning the locus of control, result shows that (the mean obtained regarding students’ locus of control was 41.64±3.82) it was higher than the standard mean for this attribute (μ=40). Moreover, result indicates that there was no significant difference between genders in tendency to be successful, tendency to be independent, creativity, and risk-taking. But in determination, ambiguity tolerance, and locus of control, a significant difference was observed between genders. Conclusion: The high mean of entrepreneurship attributes (over theoretical mean) generally represents dentistry students’ potential readiness towards being entrepreneurs. However, it is necessary to improve the entrepreneurship training program by paying appropriate attention to all the components.